MOVIES - Dr. D's X-Ray Machine - Alternative Guffman

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

Dr. Daniel Recommends Waiting for Guffman

The other Saturday was one of those days. I went to Atlanta to pick up some things at The Medical Depot, and while I was shopping, some hooligans broke into my beloved pickup truck and stole the AM-FM radio. It wasn't so much the loss of the radio that bugged me -- the tape player was jammed up anyway with a melted copy of Tom Jones' Live in Costa Rica (from the hot summer of '95) -- it was the fact that when the snotheads ripped it out of the dashboard they royally wormed up the whole bloomin' electrical system. Waiting for Guffman

Now whenever I put on my blinker to make an illegal U-turn, my high-beams come on, the horn blows, my windshield washer fluid sneezes at me, and the glove compartment pops open.
    To make matters worse, when I drove through the only nearby fast-food joint to get a cold Coca-Cola, all they had was Pepsi! (Now, if you know anything about us native Georgians, we don't drink Pepsi. Coke is such a mainstay in our neck of the woods that in some churches, it's served at communion instead of wine or grape juice.) Anyway, at this point, I was madder than a Libertarian on Election Day.
    So, I sped right home, took a left instead of a right, and headed straight for Mack's Movie Ranch. I had to have a comedy, and I had to have it fast.
    Since it was Saturday, the shelves looked picked over like Highway 41 after a Vulture Parade, so I was faced with two choices: Mannequin 2: On the Move or Waiting for Guffman.
    There was no way that I was going to subject myself to a Meshach Taylor sequel, but I must say I grabbed Guffman with my skeptic hand. As most of you know, Spinal Tap is one of my all-time faves, and Waiting for Guffman was directed by Christopher Guest ("Nigel Tufnel" of Tap and director of another satirical classic The Big Picture), and for some reason, the only praiseworthy quote they could publish on the tapecase was "a documentary in the spirit of Spinal Tap." It's kind of like somebody describing a potential blind date to you. Imagine if they said, "well, she's pretty in the spirit of Cindy Crawford." That could be taken a lot of ways. That could mean that she just had a huge mole on her face and not much else to look at.
    Well, fortunately, Waiting for Guffman is more like all of Cindy Crawford. Within moments of firing up the VCR, my sour mood had been replaced by tears of laughter. Christopher Guest trots out a Who's Who of Comedy Standouts to deliver one of the funniest unheralded movies to hit my eyes in a month of eons. The approach is much like Spinal Tap, in that it's a mock-umentary, with actors portraying a "real-life" scenario with total conviction. The storyline here centers around the small town of Blaine, Missouri, and its 150th anniversary celebration. At the heart of the festivities is a community theater production, entitled "Red, White, & Blaine", directed and written by "retired" off-Broadway choreographer Corky St. Claire (Guest), and starring an earnest crew of amateur cast members, played by Catherine O'Hara, Fred Willard, Parker Posey, and Eugene Levy (who also co-wrote the script with Guest). The local high school band director (Bob Balaban) contributes his skills in orchestrating the cheesy musical numbers. The group is dedicated to giving the town its best play ever, but to up the ante, a Broadway critic from New York City has agreed to attend the performance, and the troupe's revised goal becomes "all the way to Broadway."
    So much of the humor in Guffman comes from the surprise of detail that I don't want to spoil it by blabbing; I just want to recommend it. Don't expect the typical slapstick blather and over-the-top yucks that you'll find in most Hollywood comedies. Waiting for Guffman is smart, satirical, and full of the "little things" that make you thank yourself for paying attention. At times it's a tiny bit sad, when you realize just how accurate this community theater satire can be, yet at the same moment, it's a lovingly hilarious tribute to the eager hams who seek their dreams of fame on the portable stage at their local gymnasium.
    Please don't wait 'til you're in a rotten mood. Go outside, rip out your own car radio, hit the rentals for Waiting for Guffman, and have a huge laugh.

Get "reel" soon,
Dr. V. B. Daniel

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